


Esse

by quassia



Series: Coda [2]
Category: Super Dangan Ronpa 2
Genre: Alternate Universe - Post-Canon, Gen, Minor Violence, Post-Series, Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-29
Updated: 2014-09-29
Packaged: 2018-02-19 04:51:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,424
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2375252
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/quassia/pseuds/quassia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There is no reason to want to be together with them. Komaeda tests Hinata and is disappointed.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Esse

Hinata had never expected that it would be easy.

Naturally, he wouldn’t have. He remembered waking up. He remembered being consumed by Despair, the memories of the island being a faint and paltry flicker in the back of his brain. He remembered being out of it, emotionless but at the same time frustrated because it hadn’t _worked_ , after everything he put _into_ it, but it was exciting, it was a conclusion he hadn’t anticipated—

Of course, Owari had punched him shortly after and brought him back.

The five of them had been in a better way, though, than the others. They hadn’t died within the simulation, they had memories of escaping, of defeating Enoshima, of knowing who and what they were (albeit in a vague sense) before they had awoken.

When everyone else woke up… it was hard to say they had any of that. Not in the beginning at least.

They didn’t all wake up at once. Thank goodness. Hinata is certain they would have died otherwise, lost to a frenzy of Despair as all those who were formerly Super High School Level Despair awoke and recalled everything. Tsumiki was the worst of them—she who had recalled everything already, she who had already given right back into Despair.

The number of times they had to fight one of their own number after they had awoken was countless, alleviated only by the fact that the five of them could roughly anticipate what the others would do, especially Hinata, who had a flat and emotionless voice that murmured to him in his head on occasion.

But, Hinata recalled the first time they had dared to let Hanamura into a kitchen, only to have him come after them afterward with a knife in hand, laughing and laughing, screaming he’d kill them, he’d cut them up and feed them to the others and wouldn’t that just be full of _despair_?

He and Souda had managed to get him pinned on his stomach, Souda wrestling the knife away from him. And Hanamura had cried, sobbed, his face a mess of tears and snot, “I’m sorry, Hinata-kun, Souda-kun, I don’t know why. I can’t stop it. I don’t want to, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry…”

However, after three months they were all still alive.

And they were getting better. Slowly, slowly… These days there were less incidents, less relapses, a gathering of hope and belief on their collection of islands. They weren’t alone to deal with their Despair. They had Hinata, Souda, Sonia, Kuzuryuu and Owari, who had already fought through months of Despair by the time they had awoken. The five of them had taken it upon themselves to monitor everyone in groups, making sure they stayed with one another at all times. It could be dangerous, but that too was a part of it. That, they had expected and accepted, even if the full gravity hadn’t struck them until it had happened.

Nanami helped too, of course.

They’d reconstructed her—well, sort of. Hinata had rescued her or something like that, but he thought she had never truly been gone in the first place. He had just helped work on her system, her program, and most days he’d speak to her, or her image would pop up on the monitors in each of their rooms. It had been something Souda and Hinata had worked together on. The island itself was Nanami’s network, she could monitor everything, the cameras they had put together acted as her eyes.

She was doing much the same thing she had been in the program… looking over them all. They spoke to her every day, and bit by bit she had helped some of the others open up, recalling moments on the island, flashes of memories.

She was, Hinata thought, the only one who Komaeda would talk to at length.  
 

* * *

  
It’s natural, that Komaeda hates them. They are, after all, Despair. They’re just like _her_ , that disgusting and detestable girl, that pure embodiment of Despair that he himself helped, building up the Despair, hoping and hoping so strong that it turned into it and he did more and more to bring the world down. Komaeda hates himself, of course, for having this part of him, but at least he had _tried_ to kill them. He had tried to destroy that which had destroyed their world…

Only to have them all ruin it.

Well, that was something he had planned for as well. Still.

“Komaeda-kun,” Nanami speaks from her monitor. He sits in one of the main hubs of her network, where countless computers are set up. For the first while, he hadn’t been allowed in here—not, at least, before Nanami had told Hinata and the others that _it’s all right, Komaeda-kun wouldn’t do anything to me_ , not that he could. Her existence is held somewhere he can’t even reach, and even if he could… she isn’t Despair. There’s no point to killing her when this whole island is full of them… what would be interesting about Despair trumping Despair?

“Mmm? Nanami-san? Sorry, I was spacing out,” he says and laughs, the same as he always had, though it’s an empty laugh and smile.

“There isn’t anything in particular…” She blinks sleepily. “But, I’m just wondering… aren’t you bored? Hinata-kun is always asking you to come with him every day, isn’t he? It would be fun to go out and play for a while… I think.”

“As expected of Nanami-san… there’s not much that escapes your notice on this island, is there? Or, perhaps Hinata-kun came to complain?”

Nanami shakes her head lightly. “Hinata-kun isn’t that kind of person,” she says, but she says it in a tone that’s almost a reminder. Komaeda’s smile falters and he looks down at the lunch before him, the lunch he’d brought to the room to eat by himself. He picks with his chopsticks, not truly lamenting his lack of appetite (he’s never had an excellent one to begin with, not for a while now) before picking up something to half-heartedly eat.

“I don’t see any reason to go out with him. He’s only the same type of disgusting, worthless trash as we all are…” Komaeda chews, closing his eyes to block out Nanami’s small frown.

“You say that, Komaeda-kun… but you haven’t tried to do anything, have you?”

“Would Nanami-san let me?”

Nanami tilts her head when Komaeda opens one eye to look at her. She hums thoughtfully. “I wouldn’t… but Komaeda-kun wouldn’t do something anyway… I think.” She holds up one of her fingers. “After all, Komaeda-kun’s noticed too, right? How hard everyone has worked, ever since you all woke up. Even before that, they were doing their best. They went back to Tokyo one time, too, just before Tanaka-kun woke up…”

“That doesn’t mean anything,” Komaeda says, picking up a piece of rice. “Nanami-san can’t see that far off of this island. While they were there, it would have been simple to do something, to fall right back into Despair.”

Nanami just smiles faintly. “Even Komaeda-kun… doesn’t believe that kind of thing. And you’ve spoken to Naegi-kun and Kirigiri-san and the others when they came a while ago…”

Komaeda says nothing, which is more than enough for an answer.

“I know you talked to them for a long time and heard about a lot of things… I didn’t eavesdrop, but Naegi-kun told me about it afterward. You asked about what everyone had done, asked if they really decided to leave the simulation like they had…” She pauses and her eyelids droop, sleepily sagging before she shakes her head with a small motion. “…don’t you want to believe in them all as well? That’s why you don’t do anything, and you spend so much time watching everyone without getting involved too much. You’re waiting to see, because you want to see if they’re really what they say that they are; that they’re moving toward the future with each other.”

“…Nanami-san, you sure have an active imagination.”

He smiles, convincing neither of them.  
  


* * *

  
“Like—I—said— _no!_ A billion times _no_ , oi, what the hell do you even want with a shark?! Why the hell do you keep lurin’ them to the shore! Stop feedin’ em!!”

As usual, the dining room is full of ruckus. While once before this would have been treated as a nuisance, nowadays it’s a positive thing.

“Hmpf,” Tanaka scoffs, his hand tossing his scarf more around his neck, his posture and tone imperious. “As though I could expect a peon like you to understand the plight of the great leviathans of the sea. There is no choice but for them to come so close to an island such as this where the waters are sweet and untainted by the poisons that seep out from the dark realms. I need not draw them, they know by their strength and by primordial instincts—”

“Get rid of ‘em! What if we want to go swimming?!”

“Fool…! To presume you may master the ocean, truly you are impertinent…”

“They’re getting along as well as usual,” Hinata comments to Kuzuryuu, who shares his table and looks (unimpressed) toward the bickering duo. Pekoyama sits close at hand, quiet and calm as she drinks from a bowl of miso soup, giving the pair only a brief glance.

“I don’t get it,” Kuzuryuu replies flatly. “What the hell are they even doing…? Every evening it’s like this, and they still sit together…”

“Like I said, they’re getting along well.”

Kuzuryuu balks. “You were being serious?!” Hinata smiles at his expression and Kuzuryuu sighs at him, rolling his one eye up to the ceiling before waving off Pekoyama’s concern as she asks him if she oughtn’t silence them for him. “Leave ‘em. That guy will come crawling over here soon enough… and here he is.”

Souda collapses dramatically next to Kuzuyuu, turning first to him then to Hinata. “You saw, right?! I tried! But that guy is too stubborn!” he exclaims, searching for validation.

“The only one who is troubled on this matter is you, Souda,” Pekoyama opts to inform him.

The mechanic freezes and turns robotically toward her, staring for a long moment. Staring with his dark eyes until even Pekoyama shifts minutely in her seat.

“When you get your swim suit ripped apart by sharks,” he says at last, “don’t come cryin’ to me! I won’t lend you my shirt even if you ask me with tears in your eyes!!”

Kuzuryuu promptly punches him and Hinata’s table gets rowdier as they start to argue. He glances over their heads, seeing Tanaka staring their way, even though Sonia and Mioda have joined him at his table, the former there from the very start (which was probably why Souda had wandered over initially).

 _If you want to come and play, just come over,_ Hinata thinks and smiles at Tanaka, who reddens and averts his eyes, yanking his scarf up over his nose. _Just as usual, huh?_ He’s distracted from his thoughts, though, seeing a head of pale hair bobbing its way up the staircase, and a small tension comes into his body.

_Komaeda…_

It isn’t fear or unease that makes him tense. It’s a hopeful surge of anticipation, that perhaps this day will be the one that Komaeda will come to one of their tables or initiate conversation. However, Komaeda’s pale eyes merely rove over them all (uninterrupted by his appearance) before he moves to one of the empty tables, accepting without a word the plate Hanamura brings to him.

Hinata sighs. He gathers up his own plate (still some food remaining) and his glass.

“Hinata?” Pekoyama looks sharply to him. He shrugs helplessly, tilting his head in the direction of Komaeda’s table. “… Ah, I see. Then, the best of luck to you.” 

“Thanks,” he accepts with a laugh.

“Don’t overwork yourself,” Kuzuryuu says over Souda’s head, from where he’s wrestled him into a headlock and is grinding his knuckles mercilessly into a mop of dark hair. Hinata thinks that it isn’t overworking at all, not when Komaeda hardly does anything even when he joins him, and crosses the room to sit beside him, sliding into the chair and setting his plate down. Komaeda’s head tilts slightly, but he otherwise doesn’t react, seemingly absorbed in his meal.

“Evening, Komaeda,” Hinata greets, undeterred by the silence. Business as usual.

“Hinata-kun,” is the bare minimum of acknowledgement.

“What did you do today? Visiting Nanami again?” Hinata turns to his meal, seeing no reason to stop especially given the gap between his questions and Komaeda’s replies, as though he’s mulling over whether it’s worth it or not to answer them. Hinata is just thinking that he’s deciding it’s not when Komaeda speaks.

“I was. And?”

“And… nothing, really. I was just curious about what you were doing, since you said _no_ again to going out with me.” Hinata lowers his chopsticks from his mouth, gazing at Komaeda, his pale features and paler hair, watching pale eyelashes too as they brush briefly to his cheekbones on every blink. It takes a moment before Komaeda’s gaze shifts over to him, and then he finally feels like he’s getting somewhere.

“You didn’t expect me to say _yes_ , did you, Hinata-kun?” Komaeda raises one of his eyebrows. “I’ve said no up until this point… there’s no reason for me to change my mind now.”

“Well, I’m still trying until I get a yes out of you.” It’s a switch… in a way. Hinata’s still chasing him down, though, seeking him out as he had done within the virtual island. It was rarely that Komaeda approached him first, after all, but Hinata would chalk it up to that Komaeda not thinking that he was worthy of friends, perhaps afraid of what his luck would do to them, so many other factors… _This_ Komaeda, however…he made no secret of what kept him away from them all.

“How dedicated,” Komaeda remarks dryly, “but, Hinata-kun, it’s rather annoying when you know that I don’t want to have anything to do with you or anyone else. You should stop sooner rather than later, don’t you think?”

“I don’t think.” He doesn’t see Komaeda’s chopsticks stop, looking back at his own plate for a moment. “After all, you started showing up at last to have meals with all of us. I think that’s progress, even if you still won’t go anywhere with us and insist on being on your own.”

Komaeda shifts in his seat, setting down his chopsticks. “Thanks for the meal,” he says politely to no-one and moves to stand up. Or, at least, he tries, but Hinata’s hand reaches out to snag the end of his shirt, just a soft tug of fingers, loosely wrapped around the hem of it. Komaeda looks down at that hand before looking at Hinata, who’s occupied putting another piece of food in his mouth before he sets down his chopsticks as well and looks up. “Do you have a reason for stopping me, Hinata-kun? I’m just going back to my cottage. I’m not about to go mix up something with poison again, if that’s what you’re thinking.”

The words do their job, in making Hinata blink, caught by surprise.

Then, to _Komaeda’s_ surprise, he huffs softly as though on the receiving end of a joke and shakes his head, “Who said anything like that? I just wanted you to wait for a second until I was done, too. Let’s go back together.”

“Hinata-kun—”

“It’s only a few minutes.” Hinata doesn’t look as though he’s about to take no for an answer, and Komaeda just looks at him, stares. Hinata wonders if there’s contempt in his expression, but he doesn’t see it if there is. “I’ll follow you even if you say you don’t want me to.”

“How annoying,” Komaeda murmurs, but that’s all he says, and his voice isn’t as severe as it had once been. In the beginning, he’d been so much more vehement. Even if Komaeda won’t admit it, Hinata’s noticed tiny changes, miniscule, something that might not be enough to get others from giving up hope… but Hinata’s different. Those tiny differences are what he’s clung to, what he needs and works on with the hope that others will change. Even for someone like Komaeda… no, perhaps it’s because it’s Komaeda that these tiny little differences are the most vital of all.

He… What does Hinata want, exactly? Even he isn’t certain. He knows one-sidedly pursuing Komaeda like this, trying to get him to open up his heart may be a fruitless endeavor, but he doesn’t want to leave him, either.

It isn’t because of why he used to go to him. Or, at least, the reasons he’d told himself back then. _I’m afraid of what you’ll do if we leave you alone_ , he was sure he believed or, _I don’t understand you, which is why I keep talking to you._ That last one is still true in a small way, but different. It isn’t motivated by fear of something he doesn’t understand, but a more sincere, heartfelt wanting to. Komaeda’s alone too. They’ve all been alone. Hinata’s realised so many, so many things since he woke up, began to change and move forward, realised that though Komaeda’s done terrible things to them, how can they expect him to move forward if they don’t accept him for that, too…?

One day, Hinata wants for him to think the same.

To move forward… all of them. Together. Until the day comes, perhaps, where they have to atone for everything they’ve done, tear their throats open for those people who would hate them and want them dead. At least until then, they…  
  


* * *

  
Komaeda is walking just ahead of him, his shoulders gently inclined forward in a slump as he walks slowly from the hotel building. He doesn’t look back or try to speak to Hinata and Hinata picks up his step a bit to walk alongside him. Confusion comes when Komaeda bypasses the branching paths leading to the gender-segregated cottages, walking forward instead to the gate, not offering an explanation (not as though Hinata had expected one).

“Komaeda?”

“You can go back first, Hinata-kun,” he says with a glance over his shoulder. “I feel like an evening stroll after that dinner.” He waves his one hand lightly.

Hinata picks up his step to follow him.

“—or, you could follow me without asking,” Komaeda adds, unsurprised. “You certainly have become rude.”

“I’ve always been like this,” Hinata doesn’t try to defend himself, even smiling. Komaeda stares at him a long moment… but Hinata thinks that he sees a tiny tug of a smile before Komaeda looks away and leads the way out. Hinata follows, out to where he can hear the ocean and—if he looks—he can see what Souda was complaining about earlier, the dim and triangular shapes that circle further away from the shore. Not too close to the beach, but not particularly far either.

“If you fed someone to them,” Komaeda remarks, breaking the silence between them, “that would certainly be a torture filled with despair… don’t you think?”

Hinata takes a moment to reply.

“Tanaka won’t do something like that.” Komaeda hums doubtfully. “Besides, despite what Souda was saying earlier, it isn’t as though it’s his fault the sharks are here. There’s pollution everywhere… honestly, where else are they supposed to go?”

“You really believe he didn’t lure them here.”

Hinata’s feet crunch on stone, the concept so unbelievable for a moment before he recalls things that _he_ did, or thinks about a city full of robotic Monokumas. “Like he would. Well, I can’t say that he hasn’t relapsed a couple of times before, but he’s— _everyone’s_ been doing better. When was the last time that someone relapsed…? It’s been more than half a month.”

“Is that supposed to be a good thing, Hinata-kun?” Komaeda replies dryly.

“…isn’t it?”

Komaeda turns slowly, onto the nearby beach and Hinata follows him. “I think that you’re being too naïve.”

“For believing in them?” Hinata exhales a laugh. “Maybe so. I might be being naïve. But I really do believe in them. Even if we’ll never be the same as we once were, we’re still moving forward. That’s the important part.”

“You—we can’t change the past. Despair isn’t so easy to erase, Hinata-kun! No matter what, we’re all murderers, arsonists, maybe even cannibals, we destroyed the world!” He spreads his hand apart and he laughs as he looks toward the ocean, painted in stripes of red and orange by the setting sun. “And that despair will always be there, always, _always_ , unless _all_ of you are destroyed… ah, and me too, of course!”

Hinata says nothing, watching his back, then his face as he turns. He can’t make out his expression, not with the shadow, the bright light of that falling sun behind him. _He did it on purpose,_ Hinata realises a second too late and then the knife is coming at him. It glints, silver and quick and pointed but Hinata is fast and his body reacts without his permission, his hand lifting, the back of his wrist hitting against the inside of Komaeda’s to divert the path of the knife. It scores along his cheek instead of his throat and pain suffuses the spot.

“Just hold still, won’t you, Hinata-kun? Or, better yet, why don’t you show me this belief of yours? Why don’t you try to kill me or tie me up and put me somewhere, since I won’t stop! Not until all of you, all of this despair and these islands are wiped out.

And then I’ll be… I’ll be truly—

—hope—”

 _I can’t see his face,_ is the only thought in Hinata’s mind as he deflects the next blow in much the same fashion, stepping back, sand slipping under his feet, under the soles. His heart beats, steady and calm in his chest, faster only because he has to dodge, move out of the way as Komaeda swipes at him.

His hand catches a wrist and he can practically encircle it with his fingers. Komaeda strikes at him with his handless arm, but Hinata catches that too. He dodges the headbutt with more difficulty, so that their cheeks graze and he can feel the tickle of Komaeda’s hair against his nose and he catches a glimpse of his _eyes_ and—

“Oh.”

Komaeda laughs at him, derisive and apparently maddened, swept up in this, in despair. “ _Oh_ , Hinata-kun? Have you finally realised that I—”

“You’re not in despair,” Hinata cuts him off and Komaeda freezes. “I mean—you know. You can kind of see it in people’s eyes when it happens. That’s when I know that I have to worry, but… you’re thinking straight. You aren’t really trying to kill me, are you?”

“…what are you talking about?”

Hinata puts pressure on Komaeda’s wrist, catches the knife when it drops, cradling the handle of it on the top of his foot, an expert movement, precise and easy. Then he flicks his leg, and Komaeda hears a plop in the water behind them. “I mean, if you really wanted to kill me, you wouldn’t do this kind of stupid thing. Not you. So I was worried you relapsed into despair, ‘cause that’s when people really snap and they just freak out and lash out…”

“Hinata-kun,” Komaeda’s voice trembles. “Shut up already, won’t you?”

“Oi, before that, d’you mind explaining to me what you’re trying to pull, coming at me with a knife? It’s dangerous, you know?”

“That is usually the point of coming at someone with a knife.”

Hinata’s still holding him in place. Komaeda struggles, and Hinata’s grip softens but he doesn’t let go. It isn’t painful, but somehow Komaeda can’t break free… when was it that Hinata had gotten so strong? Ah, yes, when he had fallen into Despair and had those surgical scars carved on his head, when his eyes became red and his hair long from lack of care…

“Did something happen?” Hinata asks him, and that raw concern in his voice makes Komaeda furious, absolutely furious because how _dare_ he talk to Komaeda like that, with that concern he’d only heard long ago, before the first trial, before—before— “Or were you just…”

“Hinata-kun.”

“…trying to test me?”

The words ring and settle in the air and seem to drop down on Komaeda’s shoulders, weighing them down… He slumps them, his head lowering, and he can feel Hinata’s concerned stare.

“Honestly… you’re always disappointing me,” he says and tugs. This time, Hinata lets him step back, watches him rotate the wrist of his good hand. “It’s impressive. Did they give you that talent as well?” The sun isn’t behind him anymore, so Hinata can see it on his face, a smile that isn’t happy nor sad, just sitting there on his face. “No matter how long I wait, you’re always just… you.”

“Oi…”

“I’ve been watching all this time,” Komaeda sighs, pivots on a heel to stare back toward the ocean, regretfully toward where that knife fell in. What a waste of cutlery. “And, time after time, you’ve truly disappointed me, Hinata-kun. Spending all of your time helping the others, doing good things, never faltering, moving forward… believing in people who shouldn’t be believed in anymore, people like us who ruined everything in our own lives and others.”

“Are you insulting me or complimenting me?”

Komaeda ignores his exasperated voice, moving on. “Really, I’m truly disappointed. I hope you understand just how deep my disappointment is. You probably do, don’t you? We’re alike, after all…” He half-turns and then he sees a smile in response to the statement, a smile that gives him pause once more. Ah. Hinata has to stop doing this to him. He remembers all sorts of things because of that smile.

“So you were just testing me to see how I’d react,” Hinata surmises, smile lingering. “You really still go to extremes when it comes to plans, Komaeda…”

“And you reacted just the opposite of how I expected,” Komaeda sighs tiredly. “What am I supposed to do with this, Hinata-kun?”

“Hang out with me tomorrow?”

“No.”

Hinata frowns and tilts his head at him, but Komaeda looks toward the ocean, as stripes of colour start to melt into darkness, into a deep and fathomless blue. “What’s with that… Shouldn’t you agree already? Or do you have more tests for me to disappoint you in first?”

“I wonder?”


End file.
